Active shooter call prompts gun guideline questions

PORTSMOUTH, Va. (WAVY) — As of late, there has been a heightened sense of awareness to shooting incidents on military installations. So after a call for an active shooter at a barrack near Naval Medical Center Portsmouth Tuesday morning, many of the same security questions and concerns resurfaced, even though the situation had a different ending.

10 On Your Side has been digging into the guidelines for guns on bases, and here’s what we found out. State issued concealed weapons permits are not recognized on any Navy installation. But the Navy doesn’t altogether say no to personal firearms on base. Sailors and civilian employees should just have a card showing proof that he or she is authorized to carry a personal firearm. That card can be attained with a commanding officer’s prior approval.

We’re told that all personal firearms have to be stored in the installation’s armory, unloaded and secured with a trigger lock, and ammunition has to be far away.

Of course, there are several reasons behind the security measures, and chief among them is safety. Each time we hear of incidents like what happened Tuesday at the NSA Barracks in Portsmouth or at Fort Hood in Texas on the post, or the USS Mahan the week before, it rattles that sense of security just a bit more.

“It’s getting crazy,” said Jeri, who works on NSA. “The world is getting crazy. The security is not getting tighter anywhere around the world on any of the bases that people can get in and start shooting for no reason at all.”

Tuesday, sources say a Sailor took his own life, but it still makes people wonder if anything more needs to be done to protect their own.